Nick Brooke

The major releases so far this year:

• The Tower of the Elder Sorcerer, by David Millians: an abandoned sorcerer’s tower for adventurers to investigate and plunder. As well as the somewhat discombobulated surviving inhabitants of the tower, this adventure includes statblocks for two rival adventuring parties plus a host of suggested political complications that could follow any successful incursion. 70 pages for $5.00 (PDF).
   
• RPG Writer Workshop RuneQuest Adventure Collection, by various authors: a print edition of six scenarios by 2022 graduates of the Storytelling Collective's "Write Your First Adventure" course. Contains The White Upon the Hills, by Sacha Gauthier and Reece Dyer; Died in the Wool, by Braeden Harpool; A Lamp for Esrola, by Sven Lugar; The Indagos Bull, by Rob Marcus; The Lottery, by Robert Stoll; and An Orlanthi Wedding, by Ian Straus. 124 pages for $19.95 (standard softcover).
   
• Vrok Eye Views, Volume I, by Roy Duffy: seven high-quality maps of New Pavis locations, designed for use on Virtual Tabletops: Gimpy’s Tavern (ground floor, upper floor, basement and “Vrok’s Eye View”), Geo’s (basement and ground floor), and Bob’s Bison Burgers (inc. Mostali meat-grinding contraption). Previously published in New Pavis: City on the Edge of Forever (Pavis & Big Rubble Companion,  volume 1), this collection includes high-resolution PNG downloads of every map. Future volumes will include settlements in the Big Rubble and along the River of Cradles. 7 maps for $9.95 (PDF and PNG).
   
• A Glimpse of Pamaltela: Exploring Tarien & Hornilio, by Paul Baker: a campaign setting for adventures set among the Doraddi people of Tarien, on Glorantha’s distant southern continent of Pamaltela. As usual with Paul Baker’s books there’s a grab-bag of useful stuff: adventurer creation, short-form cult writeups for an entire pantheon, a detailed home setting (the lineages of the Sunset River tribe), NPCs, a bestiary, two scenarios, what my aunt and uncle told me, and even a short soloquest at the back. 289 pages for $22.00 (PDF).
   
• Visions of Myth, by Martin Helsdon and Katrin Dirim: a beautiful artbook collecting most of Katrin Dirim’s illustrations for Martin Helsdon’s book Ships & Shores of Southern Genertela: each picture is accompanied by new descriptive text pointing out details and symbolism that would otherwise go over our heads. Due to a bug in the new DriveThruRPG website, you might not have seen this print-only product in the store: don't miss out, it's incredibly lovely! (The digital edition is bundled as free bonus content with Ships & Shores). 52 pages for $19.95 (premium softcover) or $24.95 (premium hardcover). 

Here is the Jonstown Compendium Index 2024: an index to the new RuneQuest & Glorantha scenarios and sourcebooks (and sundry other releases) available from Chaosium's Jonstown Compendium community content web store on DriveThruRPG. The index includes full details for every product released after 1 October 2023: for details of earlier releases, see my Jonstown Compendium Catalogue 2023.

Detailed listings analyse content (pages split between scenario, stats, maps, etc.), characters, settings, ratings and price per page of content for each major release. Releases are categorised as RuneQuest Scenarios, Gloranthan Sourcebooks and Shorter Releases (including maps, artwork and random stuff). Three Where in the World? maps show every scenario, sourcebook and map's location. There are notes on when each scenarios and campaign is set (by year and season, inc. Chaosium RQG scenarios), and a best-seller chart at the back. 

The index will be regularly updated following major releases in 2024. All updates in 2024 are free; the price of the index may increase each quarter as new content grows, so don't wait too long to get on board! If you bought it earlier, get the current version of the index from your Library (top right menu) or from this product page while you're logged in to DriveThruRPG.

Please remember that I want to lay this book out. If you let someone else do it, or do it yourself, I will be very jealous.

If you want a huge New Pavis map to print out, don’t miss this one:

Well of Daliath

10 hours ago, radmonger said:

Kind of like saying America to mean the USA, so America is one of the countries in America. Which does rather bring things back to the Monrogh Doctrine. Establishing the principle that all those different temples, even the ones we don't politically control, should share a name. And therefor are all rightly considered independent from the old Yelmic Imperial cult.

I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but I massively appreciate the pun.

Don’t feel stupid: it’s not obvious, and I’m happy to help!

The two books you named are available as DriveThruRPG print-on-demand editions; lots of others, too.

The Innsmouth Cycle

The Hastur Cycle

PLUNDER: POL-JONI HATS

FRIENDLY: Orlanth
HOSTILE: Heler, Waha, Yelm.

The distinctive sun-hat of the Pol-Joni herders is a variant of the common rustic Sartarite Síðhöttr or Pelorian πέτασος (petasos), usually made of wool felt, leather or straw, with a high crown and a wide brim. Always durable and hard-wearing, some are additionally reinforced with metal or leather, becoming what the laws of Heort refer to as “hard hats” or helmets.

These light-weight, often waterproof hats have a wide brim (to shade Yelm’s rays  from the wearer’s eyes and hold off Heler’s rain), a high crown (which keeps a cooling pocket of Orlanth’s air on top of the wearer’s head), and can be used to carry water. (Cheap straw hats, of course, are not waterproof and cannot hold water.)

The few Yelmalians among the Pol-Joni prefer the crowns of their hats to retain a pure dome-shape, and the flat brim to form a perfect circle, but the more numerous Orlanthi commonly wear hats with a creased crown and a rolled brim.

Hat-bands (woven, braided, knotted, etc.) may be added, in personal, clan or tribal colours, to adjust the fit of the hat. Some groups have their own distinctive styles or colours. For example, Black Hats are commonly worn by Humakti, bandits and outlaws among the  Pol-Joni, and White Hats by the Horse-lords' appointed Sheriffs.

It's a special blessing of Orlanth that one's hat stays on one's head even in a high wind, and a special curse that it flies away.

From my notes on the Pol-joni

POL-JONI MUSIC

On 2/6/2024 at 5:37 AM, Runeblogger said:

Reading your preferences, I suggest you set your campaign in one of the Orlanthi clans settled in Pavis County, in Prax. They’ll be surrounded by nomads and plains, Pavis city is right there and there are loads of fun adventures to have. They can even have some Praxian mounts to ride.

The third Pavis & Big Rubble Companion, Pavis County: Secrets of the Borderlands by @Ian A. Thomson and friends, contains local history (inc. family history tables) for the settlers, character creation guidelines, a detailed map of Pavis County, loads of information about the Zebra Tribe (inc. character creation), and maps and gazetteers for several local settlements, plus some new adventures and guidance on adapting classic scenarios for a Pavis County campaign. It's an Electrum best-seller (over 250 copies sold), with 13 five-star customer ratings, available in printed and digital formats from the Jonstown Compendium community content store. And I agree with @g33k that it could dovetail beautifully with the Sandheart campaign: six more adventures with that Praxian post-apocalyptic vibe.

Obviously literary executors see things differently. That’s the only reason we know about Tinfang Warble and Trotter the Hobbit, after all.

All six graduate pieces from the 2022 RPG Writer Workshop's "Write Your First Adventure" RuneQuest path are now available from Chaosium's Jonstown Compendium community content programme, in a collected print-on-demand edition with a refreshed layout:

RPG Writer Workshop RuneQuest Adventure Collection

124 page softcover standard colour print-on-demand book: $19.95;
digital version $8.00, or $4.00 when bundled with the print edition.

I am really happy that we could make this happen, and am eternally grateful to all of the authors and Storytelling Collective staff (especially Ashley Warren and Kayla Cline) who supported us to create this beautiful book!

And there's a new edition of The Pastores, but you might already know that.

In general, I view these things as the Tinfang Warbles and Trotter the Hobbits of Glorantha: discarded first drafts. Greg Stafford was a publisher, he could easily have shared this stuff with the world if he thought it worth doing, and he never did. But YGWV, of course.

Illumination, Ian. The secret anti-statist agenda of the White Moonies. Opening moves in a Dart War against the Eel-Ariarsh Clan. This stuff writes itself (which is why you don’t need to spend time writing it).

1 hour ago, Bohemond said:

I'm running a scenario that is going to involve an Ernaldan ceremony, and I want to have it invaded by enemies that the PCs (who are pretty inexperienced) will need to fight off. But this led me to wondering what sort of enemies might show up?

If the Ernaldans belong(ed) to the Esrolian Red Earth faction, I suppose fanatical anti-Lunar types might try to disrupt their peaceful worship ceremonies. Think of Storm Bulls, Orlanthi, or other barbarian foes of fertility, harmony, peace and prosperity.

5 hours ago, Broadsmile said:

Are the Lunars Brain-draining (POW drain?) their subject populations? 

Quite the reverse. We are opening their (third) eyes, liberating them, emancipating them. (Spiritually speaking, of course. Terms and conditions apply.)

The Lunar Way teaches people to throw off the hidebound constraints imposed by the Old Gods’ Old Ways and achieve their ultimate potential. (Yes, sometimes that means tentacles: that’s cosmic liberation for you.)

Here's a video interview I did with Kat Clay at PAX Aus on Getting Started in Community Content. It's a bit Cthulhu-esque (she's a Miskatonic Repository author), but lots of stuff will be relevant for Jonstown Compendium creators as well.

Most Lunar citizens/subjects don’t want or need to be illuminated. But the Seven Mothers teach useful lessons about how the world works, and those who take them on board have an easier time fitting into the imperial system.

Potatoes grow in Darkness. I relish the idea of desperate Sun Domers turning to the potato goddess for aid...

15 minutes ago, EricW said:

Does this mean the emperor, while he lives, has a role in deciding what is doctrine and what is heresy? 

Since Your Glorantha Will Vary, I’d go with whatever works best for your game. If you think Moonson Argenteus takes an interest in determining the finer points of frontier missionary cult doctrine, knock yourself out.

Since Your Glorantha Will Vary, I’d go with whatever works best for your game. The Seven Mothers cult doubtless includes both inspired missionary priestesses who freely adapt their teachings to fit with local myths, and dogmatic administrative assholes who want a single standardised and imperially-sanctioned liturgy to be proclaimed throughout the empire. Whichever tendency has the upper hand will vary from time to time, affected by other events (e.g. expect a backlash against localism after the White Moon Rebellion). Remember, the Lunar Way offers terrifying freedoms to its devotees, but many would rather sink back into the comforting certainties of dogma.

Heh. Dragonewt mercenaries serving the Red Emperor also stormed Boldhome and desecrated the Flame of Sartar “in recent memory.” For more on this, see A Rough Guide to Boldhome (Jonstown Compendium, fairly imminent). 

1 hour ago, Ian A. Thomson said:

Imagine how much time you think it takes me to get out these books, then times it by ten and you are probably still way-underestimating 🙂

Write for the most common use-case, and let game masters who (say they) want to run deviant campaigns do the legwork themselves.#

My campaign Black Spear is explicitly written for pro-Colymar, pro-Argrath groups with Sartarite leadership, the sort of party Chaosium shows and tells you is the RuneQuest "default". If your current group has a Balazaring shaman, cannibal trollkin, Hrestoli nun and ninja flamingo keet while your campaign is set in Umathela, you probably won't get as much use out of it. (But your game sounds awesome!). Once you're that far off-piste, you're really not my audience any more.

Likewise, some people's apparent desire to run a pro-Lunar campaign set in Pavis is not Ian's problem. Everybody knows that the default party in a Pavis campaign is not made up of Lunar stooges, and Ian has always been very clear about his agenda. Six Seasons in Sartar doesn't have options for Haraborn deciding to side with the Lunars; Tarsh War doesn't explain how to play from the other side as Tarsh Exiles; that material would be useless for almost every group. (Ahem. "Nice though I'm sure it would be.")

"Nick's guidelines for setting the price" is probably a reference to the price-brackets used in my JC Catalogue, but I also advise people about print-on-demand pricing (when that's relevant). For the former, most JC titles are 10-15 cents; generally I wouldn't charge more than 15 cents per page of content for one of my books unless it had really cool original art and maps. But the most important guideline is "charge what you think it's worth, and value your work appropriately." 

Guidance on setting up a new community content title is attached. Note that it's possible the main Account menu name has changed on the new DriveThruRPG site, it could be My Content or My Community Content, I'm not sure the new site has yet taken in its final form.

Setting Up a JC Title.pdf